How to play the non-nutflush on monotone board 3way

I like your size and i always cbet in this spot.

Hi clovenhoofsdoom,

(very cool name btw.)

I think, that you definitely should bet the flop for value here. I think, that you might even bet a little bit smaller. You are having a lot of fold equity in this spot (mono + K), while a very good hand at the same time. The main danger consists in better flushes/flush-draws.
For the better flushes you want to keep the pot small, as they wouldn't fold anyway. For the worse flushes and non-flush-related hands you don't want to bet too big, because you want them to stay in the pot. For AcX, QcX, JcX, on the other hand, you want to bet big enough, to give them the wrong pot odds for calling. These hands have 7 outs, so a bit worse then 6:1. As they don't know for certain, that you already have two clubs , they might give themselfes even 9 outs, so they might make a -EV call with pot odds of 4:1. I thus would make a small raise of 1/3-pot giving exactly pot-odds of 4:1. Of course UTG will get better pot-odds, if BTN calls before him, but I still think, that it is the way to go, as both guys having a draw towards a better flush is very unlikely anyway.

I don't know if it is advisable to make an iso-raise pre-flop with T9s though. T9s has very small SDV but a lot of nut-potential. So I think, one would like to play it mainly for implied odds. So multi-way-pots should be better then HU and one wants to see a cheap flop. This is why I would mostly overlimp here and call later raises if you give yourself the right implied odds. I don't really know about the right preflop move here. A raise could be indeed good for several reasons. I just don't like the idea to use a raise for isolation-purposes.

@ben002

The only positions where I would consider having an overlimping range is from SB and maybe in some cases from BTN also. Now the problem is that there are 3 players behind and the risk of us getting iso-raised is not very small. And then the pot will be even bigger which makes the stack to pot ratio smaller and that is worse for our speculative hand. Another reason not to overlimp here is that we would be happy to take the pot down right away. Inviting a lot of people postflop with all sort of overcards is not that great. It also means that even if we hit good there is a better chance that we are behind. And lastly, limpers are usually weak so iso-raising and getting it to postflop heads up against this guy would be ok. In my experience we can take the pot down very often by just betting the flop super frequently.

preflop: T9s in MP is a raise. la55i explained why.

otf, of course you bet. There are weaker flushes, there are flush draws, there are disbelievers to be punished ;-) In my experience, it doesn’t matter if you bet 2/3 or 3/4 pot; who calls the first calls the second. So pot control and pot odds are more important than fold equity. Considering implied odds, it will be difficult to size the bet so that AcX cannot call. So simply play a normal bet.

@la55i/MrQNo

Thanks, I will reconsider my overlimping behavior!

I understand, MrQNo!

Isoraising wide is also fine, because in my experience, you can cbet the flop 50% potsize (probably even smaller) with any 2 cards and get folds 90% of the time. Of course, I do not have the statistics to underscore this, but I am very much convinced that this is a super super super plus EV move. And if you get calls, you still can win the hand, because Villain can call as well with 2nd or 3rd pair or top pair weakest kicker (I saw someone stacking off over my cbet with top pair weakest kicker, which is insanly nice for me, although I lost this hand).

@ben002: thanks for the praising of my name

@AgapieGheorghe: do you always cbet mono boards? Or just with this particular holding?

I always c-bet here... soo many hands that will at least call one.
You just got unlucky